Governor Kaine Announces Salem Company Signs $80 Million Deal with Indian Steel Plant

RICHMOND - Governor Timothy M. Kaine today announced that TMEIC GE, a joint venture between Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and General Electric, has made a deal worth about $80 million with India-based JSW Steel Limited to provide the company with a complete electrical and automation system. The system will be used for a new Hot Strip Mill located at Toranagallu, Bellary District, Karnataka India. Members of Virginia’s trade delegation currently in India participated in a celebratory signing of the sales agreement at a meeting of the two companies held today at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai.

“New business partnerships like this one between TMEIC GE and JSW Steel are exactly what these trade missions are all about,” said Governor Kaine. “I’m happy we were able to help facilitate TMEIC GE’s growth in the global market. This is an example of how Virginia is succeeding in the global economy.”

TMEIC GE is a long-standing joint venture between industry giants Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and GE, formed to leverage each company’s specific areas of expertise in the global supply of packaged drives and drive systems. The three industry leaders each provide high levels of expertise in power electronics, systems integration technology and industry application knowledge. In addition to the technology each company offers, TMEIC GE is tightly integrated with the renowned GE Sales and Service organizations to assure continuity of sales, service and spare parts to its North American customer base.

TMEIC GE will provide the system to JSW Steel Limited, a fully integrated steel plant having units across Karnataka and Maharashtra. JSW Steel has the annual production capacity of 3.8 million tons of crude steel but in order to deal with rapid increase of steel demand, it is implementing the expansion plan to increase annual production up to 6.8 million tons of crude steel by 2008.

“This project is another excellent example of TMEIC and TMEIC GE global project execution,” said TMEIC GE Marketing Director Steve Blomquist. “Drives and motor equipment will be provided by TMEIC facilities in Japan while the automation system and complete electrical system engineering is being supplied by TMEIC GE offices in Salem, Virginia.”

TMEIC GE is a participant in the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Virginia Leaders in Export Trade (VALET) program. VALET assists exporters in the Commonwealth that have firmly established domestic operations and are committed to international exporting as an expansion strategy.